Professor Adrian Guelke

Professor Adrian Guelke

My principal interest is in the politics of deeply divided societies, most particularly the cases of South Africa and Northern Ireland. Although I have done some work on each as individual cases, I have an especial interest in comparison of deeply divided societies and any role that comparison has played in their politics. In the past I have done a considerable amount of work on political violence both in deeply divided societies and more widely. This led me to carry out a study of terrorism, a subject that also fits into my interest in the international dimensions of internal conflicts, crossing the boundaries between International Relations and Comparative Politics.

Appraisal of Prof Guelke’s recent book:

The end of the Cold War and the reorganisation of global politics along less dualistic lines did not create deeply divided societies, although it did facilitate the breakup of once stable states into smaller and smaller polities, often along ethnic and/or religious lines, as peoples began to vie anew for their own right of self-determination. This has opened new challenges for national and global governance; challenges necessitating the development of an authoritative introductory survey of the phenomenon for both students and policy makers. Guelke’s Politics in Deeply Divided Societies is that text. (Read further)

‘Northern Ireland: communal division and the embedding of paramilitary networks’ in David Martin Jones, Ann Lane and Paul Schulte (eds), Terrorism, Security and the Power of Informal Networks (Edward Elgar 2010)

‘South Africa: The Long View on Political Transition’ in John Coakley (ed.), Pathways from Ethnic Conflict: Institutional Redesign in Divided Societies (Routledge 2010)

‘Israeli Flags Flying Alongside Belfast’s Apartheid Walls: A New Era of Comparisons and Connections’ in Guy Ben-Porat (ed.), The Failure of the Middle East Peace Process? A Comparative Analysis of Peace Implementation in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

‘Great whites, paedophiles and terrorists: the need for critical thinking in a new age of fear’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol.1, No.1, April 2008

‘The Lure of the Miracle? The South African Connection and the Northern Ireland Peace Process’ in Christopher Farrington (ed.), Global Change, Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: Implementing the Political Settlment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) ~ book arising out of ESRC project

‘The Northern Ireland Peace Process and the War against Terrorism: Conflicting Conceptions?’, Government and Opposition, Vol.42, No.3, Summer 2007

Terrorism and Global Disorder: Political Violence in the Contemporary World (IBTauris, 2006)

Co-editor, A Farewell to Arms?: Beyond the Good Friday Agreement ( Manchester University Press, 2006)

Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid: South Africa and World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)